Lepidoptera

The terror of being discovered, the humiliation of capture, the bleak confinement and dark uncertainty weighed heavily on its mind.

Echoing in a trance around the cell and trembling from the cold confused dread, the dark fear was all encompassing. Above the cell, there was only a murky darkness. Trembling with closed eyes, its mind wandered back to where it happened. It had been in the early morning, dew was on the grass, and the sun just started its sluggish rise over orange tinged mountains. The huge piece of pink tissue with long tentacles came out of nowhere! The seizure was instantaneous. There was no opportunity for escape. Nostrils still dry from anxiety pulled in stale air as dread built up in its mind. Squinting the eyes failed to rid the mind of the shock and terror flooded the consciousness like a stream of ice water.

A shadow suddenly loomed above the cell. It looked up and shuddered at the sight. Sheer panic and hopeless anxiety was all consuming.

An alien voice broke through the inhuman atmosphere; “you’re moving!”

Trembling with fear as the being’s hot breath engulfed the cell, its mind overflowed with fear.

The voice spoke again. It was filled with vague almost childlike warmth. Pink tentacles neared.

The austere prison was tiny, and contained a fairy like ambiance. The alien voice once again penetrated the cloudy veil of thought like a sharp knife.

Quivering and remembering vividly the enormous thing, which captured then took it to the cell, consciousness was released. Thoughts crept into the past and perceived in shadowy images the creature standing near. It was filled with a strange excitement. Long pink tentacles seized it and unconsciousness swam in a sea of alien fragrance. The encounter had been the start of a drift into the alien’s world.

The mind slowly drifted back to the present. Opening weary eyes, it saw the tiny delicate figure with sad eyes, which shared the cell staring at him. Her eyes were tender and loving.

The voice spoke again, “your world is a deception a world only half formed a world of non-reality. Because of it, you are filled with emptiness. I have saved you from the vileness of your existence.”

It didn’t know if the alien had spoken or if the words were screaming from its own mind. Terror enclosed its very essence and its subconscious triumphed.

A strange alteration in the inner existence was being torn forcibly from its body. Recoiling then cowering in the far corner of the cell, a schism was born in the body.

Trembling at the deep sleep enveloping its mind and body, a dream arrived. Drifting into the deep subconscious, a horrible organism in a state of existential paraplegia formed in its mind’s eye.

—§—

The being, unable to stand, crawled over the edge of the world. It contained the murky light of nonbeing, and existed in an unfinished, metamorphic existence. It was earth bound crawling on its belly existing without meaning then it suddenly soared above the banalities of mere existence. The creature was afraid to become one with destiny, fearful to die the death of ignorance and transform its being. It was only a potential, still unconscious of its function in the universe, ignorant of its duty of coincidentia oppostorium but not desiring to be the ugly sameness. It was a formless form, continually falsifying its own reality, constantly striving to maintain its illusionary life

Reality exploded into being and the world of the perplexed umbrae twisted into a nameless dichotomy, an unbearable and yet unsolvable enigma. Earth and spirit, misery and love combined into one being. Illusion and reality becoming unrecognizable took a new form from the ruins of duality. It was a new oneness, a philosophical fusion manufactured by Abraxas. In the surrealistic illusion, the reality of good, and evil, merged as a singularity, a rhapsody of love and hate sewn together screaming like a gapping wound stripped of its false presumptions.

As the two-sided oneness approached the earth, it became ill containing the invisible virus of amorality, a disease unable to be cured by oneness. The sickness had the fetid stench of the cave below, where chained illusions still existed. Malodorous blood dripped from newly opened wounds of knowledge. Then as the ancient dualistic

idealism diminished into nothingness, suffering ceased and a laborious transmutation began. The bloody conversion continued and the new organism’s body trembled at its pure simplicity. False primordial memories were destroyed by new realities. The veil of obscurity split and the confused being caught glimpse of the secrets of life and death.

Strands of truth unraveled before its blurred eyes as it fell earthward in existential pain. A holy vision appeared and solutions to the ancient mystic riddles became clear. The Socratic fool began to shed its false beliefs, its journey into shadowy imaginings faded and the nightmare ended. Eve frowned at Abraxa, the allies in the malevolent art of illusion had lost. The creature-thing now understood the ancient conspiracy that had held it captive and truth unfolded. Eyes that could not see now comprehended without sight, ears that could not hear now understood without sound. As new bits of wisdom were grasped, illusions of preexistent lies pealed away like dust from a prehistoric essence. The Transmutation continued to take place for forty days and forty nights.

The dreaming soul trapped in the cell ripped at the dream with it levels of illusions, juxtaposed one upon the other like terrifying Chinese masks. Each mask had hidden rudiments of reality and substituted illusionary lies. Falsehoods fell away one by one and wisdom approached. It emerged from the dream full of life and truth. The illusions and false truths were stripped away and fell deftly wet with revitalizing tears. The beautiful emerging truth delicate and pure reduced all former existence into insignificance. It discovered that reality and truth had been false and empty, and all that existed before the transformation was a cloud of meaningless absurdity and untruth. The old illusionary world no longer existed. The new reality soared higher and higher escaping the repugnant odor of the flesh-lies of yesterday. Only chaste truth remained. The true consciousness of reality illuminated its path. Steppenwolf and Zoroaster were freed as their masks were torn off and the adored child smiled.

—§—

Awaking fully with a start an image in the mirror caused it to gasp. Escaping from the cell with wings of truth, the new it soared and the tiny icon smiled.

The iridescent beautifully colored wings of translucent reality transported it silently away from the cell. The dark cavern of its formal existence had disappeared a new world with a new destiny had materialized. It flew to the alien being no longer afraid and landed on a long pink tentacle for a brief moment. It then soared up into the air fully aware of the truth of its being as the alien smiled and waved.

“George, did you see that beautiful butterfly fly out the window?”

“I’ll bet that’s what happened to that little green worm that Christina found by the oak tree and put in her little jewelry box with her Mary icon.”

“I wonder if she was aware that that repulsive worm would become a beautiful butterfly.”

“Now dear, you know little Christina couldn’t know things like that! She is only five years old, metamorphoses is a very complicated thing.”